Comments
THE SPECTATOR
The object of this seasonable and well-intentioned little book A Christmas Carol is to promote the social festivities and charities of Christmas, by showing the beneficial influence of these celebrations of the season on the bestowers as well as the recipients of this sort of hospitality. And Mr. Dickens has done this in his own peculiar way: instead of preaching a homily, he tells a “ghost story,”—not a blood-freezing tale of horror, but a serio-comic narrative, in which the ludicrous and the terrible, the real and the visionary, are curiously jumbled together, as in the phantasmagoria of a magic lantern.
—December 26, 1843
FRASER’S MAGAZINE
As for the Christmas Carol, or any other book of a like nature which the public takes upon itself to criticise, the individual had quite best hold his peace. One remembers what Bonaparte replied to some Austrian critics, of much correctness and acumen, who doubted about acknowledging the French republic. I do not mean that the Christmas Carol is quite as brilliant or self-evident as the sun at noonday; but it is so spread over England by this time, that no sceptic, no Fraser’s Magazine ,—no, not even the godlike and ancient Quarterly itself (venerable, Saturnian, bigwigged dynasty!) could review it down. “Unhappy people! deluded race!” one hears the cauliflowered god exclaim, mournfully shaking the powder out of his ambrosial curls. “What strange new folly is this? What new deity do ye worship? Know ye what ye do? Know ye that he has never tasted the birch of Eton, nor trodden the flags of Carfax, nor paced the academic flats of Trumpington ? Know ye that in mathematics, or logics, this wretched ignoramus is not fit to hold a candle to a wooden spoon? See ye not how, from describing low humours, he now, forsooth, will attempt the sublime? Discern ye not his faults of taste, his deplorable propensity to write blank verse? Come back to your ancient, venerable, and natural instructors. Leave this new, low, and intoxicating draught at which ye rush, and let us lead you back to the old wells of classic lore....” But the children of the present generation hear not; for they reply, “Rush to the Strand! and purchase five thousand more copies of the Christmas Carol.”
In fact, one might as well detail the plot of the Merry Wives of Windsor, or Robinson Crusoe, as recapitulate here the adventures of Scrooge the miser, and his Christmas conversion. I am not sure that the allegory is a very complete one, and protest, with the classics, against the use of blank verse in prose; but here all objections stop. Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, “God bless him!” A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep Christmas day, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two friends to dine—this is a fact! Many men were known to sit down after perusing it, and write off letters to their friends, not about business, but out of their fulness of heart, and to wish old acquaintances a happy Christmas. Had the book appeared a fortnight earlier, all the prize cattle would have been gobbled up in pure love and friendship, Epping denuded of sausages, and not a turkey left in Norfolk. His royal highness’s fat stock would have fetched unheard of prices, and Alderman Bannister would have been tired of slaying. But there is a Christmas for 1844, too; the book will be as early then as now, and so let speculators look out.
As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that young gentleman, about which a man should hardly venture to speak in print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the women just now, “GOD BLESS HIM!” What a feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap!
—signed M.A.T. (February 1844)
THE ATHENÆUM
For once, we anticipate, as among things possible, a harmony of the Press; and that a triple bob-major will be executed in honour of the birth of this Goblin Story [“The Chimes”]. From the Great Tom down to the shrill muffin-tinkler, the multifarious company of ringers, however discordant on common work-days, need not fear to unite on a holiday occasion like this, and “put their heart into their work”;—since here is a good book for the season,—a book for gentle and simple, —a running of wine (to speak figuratively) from a well-known fountain:—and of a wine which, while it warms the cold and cheers the mournful, will not intoxicate.
—December 21, 1844
G. K. CHESTERTON
In this one work of Dickens ... the historical and moral importance is really even greater than the literary importance.... A Christmas Carol is perhaps the most genial and fanciful of all his stories.
—from his introduction to A Christmas Carol (1922)
Questions
1. Does A Christmas Carol inspire you to be a better, more generous person?
2. Dickens’s sentimentality has been defended in various ways. One is that if you want to move people to action, you have to arouse their emotions; logic and evidence are not enough, and to arouse emotions you have to lay the sentimentality on thick. A counterargument is that sentimentality is a form of deception, of others or of oneself—that sentimentality actually veils the real power of a writer’s argument. Which view do you agree with? Does embracing either affect your feeling about the stories in this volume? Do you think Dickens is really as cloyingly sentimental in A Christmas Carol or The Chimes as some modern readers accuse him of being?
3. Do we have our own Scrooges in public life?
4. Do Dickens’s obvious social positions sometimes make you side with Scrooge?
5. Do you agree with the idea that there are poor people who deserve to be helped and poor people who do not deserve to be helped? If so, who gets to decide who falls into which category?
6. Do you side with or against the idea expressed in The Chimes that the rigors of poverty make people bad or degraded?
7. What lies are we justified in telling to those we love? Are we justified in telling any?
8. Dickens saw—and in his Christmas stories delineated—the pitfalls of leaving welfare in the hands of private individuals, as well as the pitfalls of leaving welfare in the hands of lawmakers. Does his illumination of these difficulties in his day contribute to our debates about charity and welfare today?
FOR FURTHER READING
Also by Charles Dickens
Sketches by Boz (1836)
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Pickwick Papers, 1836-1837)
Oliver Twist (1837-1839)
Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839)
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
American Notes (1842)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
Pictures from Italy (1846)
Dombey and Son (1846-1848)
David Copperfield (1849-1850)
Bleak House (1852-1853)
Hard Times (1854)
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Great Expectations (1860-1861)
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished, 1870)
On Dickens’s Life and Times
Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Butt, John, and Kathleen Tillotson. Dickens at Work. London and New York: Methuen, 1957.
Chittick, Kathryn. Dickens and the 1830s. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Davis, Paul. The Penguin Dickens Companion. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999.
Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Dickens. New York: Viking, 1998.
Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. 1872-1874. New York: Double-day, Doran, 1928.
Gissing, George. Charles Dickens. 1898. Reprint: Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1966.
House, Humphrey.
The Dickens World. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1941.
1 Mid-August, when the star Sirius (the “dog star,” since it appears in the constellation Canis Major) is notable in the sky.
2 Scarf.
3 Throat.
4 The trumpet heralding Judgment Day.
5 Saint Dunstan (924—988) was an English monk who became archbishop of Canterbury ; he was said to have pinched the devil’s nose with fireplace tongs.
6 American bonds were not highly regarded.
7 Hollow cone or other device for extinguishing a flame, as of a torch or candle.
8 Dark but not very strong beer.
9 Mix of water, sugar, and wine, usually sherry or port.
10 Known in America as the Virginia Reel, this country dance was a standard part of Christmas celebrations before and after Dickens’s time.
11 Apples with a dark skin.
12 The wash-house was a room, often open on one side, where washing was done in a large copper cauldron set in brickwork containing the fire that heated the water.
13 Song for three or more people; a catch usually is a round, in which the parts have the same melody but overlap each other—for example, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
14 Game involving frivolous rules; breaking a rule resulted in the forfeit of some trifle, and some foolish action would be required to get it back. Jane Austen writes about this game in Pride and Prejudice (1813).
15 Trojan priest of Apollo; after Laocoön offended the gods—including warning the Trojans about the Greeks’ “Trojan horse”—he and his two sons were entangled and devoured by sea serpents. An ancient statue depicting the attack of the serpents is on display in the Vatican Museum.
16 Two and a half shillings, or 30 pence; Bob’s weekly salary is 15 shillings.
17 Red wine with sugar and spices, poured over oranges and served hot.
18 Person licensed (“ticketed”) to carry small items or messages.
19 Mittens.
20 One who is very adroit at rationalizations.
21 Bakeries, when they were not using their ovens, often allowed people to use them to cook meals.
22 Kind of dried sausage; possibly a corruption of “Bologna,” an Italian city that produced dried sausages.
23 Pig’s feet.
24 Pig intestines.
25 As in acute, sharp—not cutesy or sweet.
26 Letters were not sent in separate envelopes; the paper was folded over and glued shut with wax.
27 Donating money to certain charities entitled one to a number of votes on how they were run.
28 Long shirt common to men living in the countryside; today we would say “smock.”
29 Stables.
30 Rent.
31 Indoor bowling, in which a wooden disk or ball was used to knock down nine wooden pins.
32 English king Henry the Eighth, who had six wives, two of whom were beheaded.
33 A Sally Lunn was a bun made with honey.
34 Mix of beer, gin or similar strong alcohol, and sugar, heated with a hot poker.
35 Flagship of the Royal Navy.
36 Knee-length pants.
37 “How doth the little busy bee ...”; poem frequently taught in Victorian schools.
38 Personification of marsh gas as a creature that misleads travelers.
39 The devil.
40 Reference to the old English legend of the Seven Sleepers; when they awake King Arthur will return.
41 Smallpox vaccination, devised in England by Edward Jenner in 1796; the only existing vaccine at that time.
42 In alchemy, a stone that will turn base metal (such as lead) into gold and create an elixir of life; hence the British tide of the first Harry Potter novel: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997).
43 Two of Noah’s three sons who were on the Ark; Japhet was the third.
44 That is, what is the cost?
45 Corruption of “Bethlehem,” from the hospital of St. Mary’s of Bethlehem, where since medieval times the insane had been housed.
46 As in a ship weighing (lifting) anchor, setting off.
47 Jacket of short length and with long sleeves; waists were still high (under the breasts) in 1843.
48 Whoa; stop.
49 Items of little account; today we would say “small beer.”
50 Rest with food and drink.
51 Wrestler of the day.
52 “Saint Vitus’ dance” was a general term for one of several illnesses causing shaking or nervous jerks and tics.
A Christmas Carol, the Chimes & the Cricket on the Hearth Page 31